Werewolves in Love 2: Yours, Mine and Howls (10 page)

“You’ll sure as hell have to leave when I tell you to,” he ground out.

He heard her breath catch in her throat. Blinking against tears, her jaw clenched, she put a foot up on the dashboard and rested her head on her knee. Ally Kendall talked a tough game, but he wasn’t buying it anymore.

Or maybe she just wasn’t as tough when the subject was her pup or her future. Somehow he knew, without asking, that she had no place else to go.

And just like that—just like last night—he regretted his words. Without thinking, he reached out to her, but she turned her head away. The skin on the back of her neck was warm and soft beneath his calloused hand. He stroked her neck with his thumb as they sat in silence for a few long minutes, he trying to think of something to say, she trying not to cry.

“Ally. Look at me.”

“Don’t,” she said shakily, sitting back and staring straight ahead with dry eyes. She pushed his hand away. “Don’t say something nice. Because I’ll like it, and then you’ll turn around and be an asshole again.”

“I’m not trying to be an asshole.”

It discomfited him, how much he needed to gaze at her. Her face, in profile, looked so young and fragile. He’d managed to memorize its lines and curves in the space of just one day. The golden blond eyelashes resting against the smooth, soft cheeks. The spot where he knew a dimple could appear, but not for him, not anymore.

He shouldn’t be sitting here trying to patch things up. They were in sight of the complex. Wolves were strolling about, looking at the Jeep stopped in the middle of the road.

Cade stretched his arm out again, letting his hand just brush her shoulder, but she still wouldn’t look at him. “I’m a Pack Alpha, Allison. You keep challenging me, and I don’t know why you do it.”

Or why he kept letting her do it. A suspicion had taken root in the back of his mind, but he didn’t want to look too closely at it.

“I’m not challenging you. I just don’t like being told what to do.”

Her voice was steadier, but still so forlorn as to break his heart. He couldn’t stand being the one who made her sound like that. She seemed so scrappy and determined, but so small and alone. Even with three wolves—or perhaps
because
she was with three wolves—she was so alone.

“I hate the way you make me feel,” she muttered in the same hurt tone.

Recoiling at her words, he threw the Jeep into first and drove much too fast back to the house.

They didn’t speak again. Cade jumped out of the Jeep and stomped into the house, leaving Ally staring after him. Just as well—tears still pricked at her eyelashes. She couldn’t bear to cry in front of him.

In a minute, Michael came out of the house. He scowled as he approached her.

“Cade wants me to show you around.” He turned and began to walk toward the cabins.

“I’d rather just…”

“Cade told me to show you around, so I’m gonna show you around.” Now that she was on the outs with his Alpha, Michael didn’t bother trying to be polite. “The sooner we get started, the sooner it’ll be over.”

“Well gosh, Michael, when you put it that way.”

They checked out the cabins—three large bunkhouses for wolves, two empty cabins for guests. They didn’t visit the woodshop. She suspected Michael could tell she didn’t give a rip.

Why did she keep fighting with Cade?

The gym was right behind the main house and constructed of the same beautiful wood and stone. Michael said it was as old as the house. Louis MacDougall and his wolves had built it some fifty years ago.

Why was he harsh with her one minute, tender the next? As soon as he’d seen that he’d hurt her, he’d tried to soothe her. Was claw/caress/claw a Pack Alpha thing?

When they walked into the building, her own reflection assaulted her from three of the main room’s four walls. This was why she hated commercial gyms—all the damned mirrors.

One minute he was about to kick her out, the next he was stroking her neck with that warm, hypnotic touch.

The gym was indifferently furnished with an old plaid couch, a Formica-covered table and some chairs.

He was the most confusing male she’d ever met—charming, brusque and overpowering.

His mother had served the Old One who had restored Ally’s life.

She barely glanced at the showers and sauna. What really impressed her was the pool room, which held a full-sized saltwater pool. She’d never swum in one before.

He was going to take all the family she had and kick her back out into the world by herself.

And she couldn’t wait to see him again. She both dreaded it and longed for it.

She wanted to put on her swimsuit and jump into the pool, but she didn’t feel comfortable doing that. It would feel weird, having just had another fight with Cade, to help herself to his facilities, even though he’d offered them. Besides, going back and forth across a pool wasn’t enough to quell this dammed up, kinetic misery. She needed to be outside. She needed to run.

At first she sprinted, overjoyed to move freely and naturally with no one to see her, no one to note her speed and agility. She left the compound behind in seconds.

As she ran through a small copse and back into the open, she heard the howling. It was one of her favorite sounds. She could discern the nature of different howls, and tonight Rocky Mountain sounded alternately forlorn and exuberant. They mourned Aaron, even if he wasn’t dead, and they rejoiced in their wolfish nature.

She wished she had a pack to belong to, someone else with whom to rejoice in her nature. Uniqueness sucked.

So did maudlin self-pity.

She ran for two hours, heading back to the house when it got dark. Later, emerging from her shower, she found Becca perched on her bed, wearing only Hello Kitty panties.

“You should be in bed, baby. Want me to tuck you back in?”

“I heard the wolves,” the child said sleepily. “Can we go look?”

She debated for a second, then decided there’d be no harm in a quick peek.

“Hang on. I’ll get dressed.”

She sat down at the top the porch. Becca promptly claimed her lap.

The house sat at the apex of the horseshoe formed by all the buildings clustered around the yard. From the porch she could see all the way down the main road, across the open fields and beyond the stables. Nothing moved. All she heard were wolf howls in the distance.

Becca put her head on Ally’s shoulder, eyelids heavy. Ally pressed a kiss to her temple. They sat in silence for a while before a few wolves walked out of the trees behind the woodshop and headed in their direction, taking no notice of the two females.

Becca pointed in the direction of the stables and said with a groggy grin, “Look. There’s my daddy.”

An enormous black wolf loped gracefully across the fields. As he approached the yard, he slowed to a walk. Ally caught her breath.

Full moon was a few nights away. On this cloudless, starry night the yard received enough glow to give everything a faint silver sheen. No outdoor lights spoiled the effect. She could see without the moon glow, but the way it glinted off the wolves and shone on the whispery fields and trees, the howls of the unseen wolves and the breeze across her skin, and the bundle of warm, sleepy child in her arms—all of it together brought tears to her eyes. If she could paint herself into a home of her choosing, it would be here. This wasn’t self-pity, just an acknowledgement of what she didn’t have and wished she did.

The black wolf stopped in front of the porch and stood watching them with unblinking eyes. She rested her cheek on Becca’s head.

Becca said, even more sleepily now, “Hi, Daddy.” The wolf put his cold, wet nose to her cheek. Becca laughed. Then he looked up at Ally, and it was weird and scary to have that face so close to hers, those yellow eyes holding hers.

Ally whispered, “I’ll put her to bed now.”

He watched her as she walked away, just like he had last night.

She hit the pool early the next morning. Losing herself in the rhythm of the laps, she swam hard, back and forth, back and forth, all movement, no thought.

She didn’t know how long she’d been in the water when she ran out of strokes. She had just enough energy left to swim to the ladder and hoist herself out. She took a couple of steps and looked up.

Cade stood a few feet away, watching her.

Yet again, she stopped breathing. She tried to look away, to look anywhere else, but he commanded her attention without word or movement. His gaze, intense and unreadable, caressed her skin, and she shivered.

His dark blue button-down shirt accentuated tanned skin and taut muscles. He leaned with his back against the wall, arms crossed, one foot braced behind him. Faded jeans hugged his lean hips and long legs. The worn denim looked soft to the touch. An image popped into her mind unbidden—her running her thumb along the inner seam of his raised leg, the friction of her fingers on the denim heating her hand as it went higher up his thigh.

Blushing, she forced her eyes back to the fierce, beautiful face. Her hand itched to brush the curls out of the startling green eyes that held her pinned in place. How could he stalk her without moving a muscle?

A wolf that pretty shouldn’t look so dangerous. A wolf that big shouldn’t be so graceful. If only she…

“I hate this place.”

“I’m sorry?”

“This room. The pool. My mother swam every day, sometimes more than once a day. It irritated my father—he’d say he didn’t know he’d married a mermaid.” He paused, temporarily releasing her as he looked about the room. “I don’t know why I keep it running. The smell of the saltwater reminds me of her.” He smiled slightly. “I don’t think I want to associate my mother’s scent with you.”

“Cade, I…” She faltered, too nervous, tongue-tied and aroused to continue.

He pushed off from the wall and crossed the distance between them in two long strides, picking up her towel on the way.

Her brain yelled at her to run, her body insisted on staying put, so she did what every small animal did when confronted with an inescapable predator.

She closed her eyes.

“Allison.”

She loved the feel of his voice. Deep and slow, it flowed through her like warm brandy.

“Ally. Look at me.”

She opened her eyes, careful not to meet his gaze. Instead she stared at his strong, sensual mouth and imagined his beard against her skin.

Cade pulled the swim towel tight around her shoulders and drew her in. Before she could react, his mouth came down on hers.

She gave a helpless little moan. His tongue was hot, and she shivered again when he let go of the towel to bury his fingers in her hair and kissed her harder. She stood on her tiptoes and leaned into him, her arms going around his waist, her hands running over the smooth, hard muscles of his back.

Slowly he released her mouth, pausing to bite her bottom lip ever so softly. He lifted his head from hers, but he didn’t let go of her face. She glanced at his eyes, just for a second. The heat and the hunger in his gaze melted her bones. Her breath caught in her throat as his finger softly traced the outline of her mouth.

Cade inhaled sharply when she parted her lips and tentatively, shyly, licked his finger. His skin was rough beneath her tongue. His thumb traced a line of soft fire down her cheek as his finger explored her mouth. A hot, exquisite ache inflamed her core, weakening her legs.

With eyes half closed, Cade watched her mouth as she swirled her tongue around his finger. She sighed as he withdrew it.

“Tell me you lied,” he rasped.

“What?”

“Yesterday. When you said you hated the way I make you feel. Say you lied.”

She’d meant she hated the way he made her feel weak. But his fingers were tracing her jaw and wandering across her lips and stroking her throat, and she didn’t want him to stop. So she replied in a shamefully shaky voice, “I don’t hate the way this feels.”

He cocked an eyebrow and brought his dark head down closer to hers until their mouths were almost, but not quite, touching.

“I’ll be back in two days. You’ll be here.”

Though she barely knew him, she’d never been so weak or willing for any man. Stupid with desire, she would let him take her right here on the concrete floor if he wanted.

And yet she managed to be annoyed with the way he gave her an order and expected her to obey it.

“You can’t tell me to—”

“Goddamn it,” he growled, crushing her to him and kissing her again—harder this time, rougher, but it didn’t hurt her and it didn’t scare her. She kissed him just as hard and hungrily, her fingernails digging into his back.

When they stopped to breathe, he held her face still and forced her to look up at him.

“Allison, I’m having a bad week. You will be here when I get back. Shut the fuck up and say yes.”

Every inch of her was pressed against him now. She wondered, a little deliriously, if steam might rise from their bodies, hers so wet and his so hot. She swallowed hard and whispered, “Yes.”

His expression was still hungry, but now there was tenderness there as well, and an uncertainty she didn’t understand. He muttered another curse and held her head tight against his chest, running his fingers through her wet hair. His heart hammered against her ear. She tightened her arms about him.

“I’m soaking wet and I have a hard-on. Think any of my wolves will notice?”

“Oh,” she gasped, staring at him in dismay. “What are you going to do?”

He ran his thumb down the bridge of her nose and over her lips. “I’m the Alpha—I don’t have to do anything.”

“But they’re going to smell me on you!”

He gave her a slow, cocksure grin. “Yeah. Even better, they’re going to smell
me
on
you
.”

She must have looked mortified, because his grin widened.

“You’re adorable.” His thumb lazily teased her mouth again. “I swear to God, you annoy the hell out of me, and it just turns me on more.”

He tilted her chin up and kissed her softly on the cheek, and then he walked away. She wrapped the towel around herself, feeling cold and lonely and exposed.